The goal of the Winsor & Newton blog (http://www.winsornewton.com/community/our-blogs/) is to "provide personal views on painting, techniques, personal artist's histories, art critique and technical information about artists materials." Their blog is actually four blogs; two by employees - Cassandra Fairman (http://www.winsornewton.com/community/our-blogs/cassandra-fairman/) and Ian Maginnis (http://www.winsornewton.com/community/our-blogs/ian-maginnis-/) and two by individual artists - Gly Macey (http://www.winsornewton.com/community/our-blogs/glynmacey/) and Adebanji Alade (http://www.winsornewton.com/community/our-blogs/adebanji-alade/).
Golden features 'Mark's Blog' (http://www.goldenpaints.com/blog/). Mark Golden, son of the company founder, conducts his blog according to a Blogger Code of Ethics based upon that of General Motors (http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/).
Both blogs welcome your comments. But the Winsor & Newton bloggers have stopped blogging. It has been over a year since all but Glyn have posted. And they are not responding to recent comments either. There weren't many comments to begin with; probably because in order to leave a comment you have to be registered and logged in. On the other hand, Mark answers all comments promptly (in accordance with his Code of Ethics). And he gets many comments - no need to register, no need to login; just fill in the boxes at the bottom of his post and click Submit.
As I mentioned earlier, Winsor & Newton has four individuals with a blog:
- Cassandra Fairman, a technical team member at the company, wrote several paragraphs to introduce herself and the new water-mixable oil colors. Although she says she wants to hear from you, she directs you to the FAQ section of the website if you have questions, and hasn't responded to the couple of comments received.
- Ian Maginnis, Artist's Materials Technical Advisor, the other employee, blogs about paintings he was commissioned to do for the Game Lodge in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa. His posts are a page or two; each post discusses a different painting for the Game Lodge. He briefly gives some background information about the painting, then jumps right into the technical - like "fat over lean" and varnishing - and shows the painting in progress. By the way, this technical information is also repeated in the FAQ's.
- Glyn Macey, an artist, blogs about his tour of the English Coast. He is painting a scene from each city and town he visits; the paintings are to be auctioned as a fundraiser. His posts are very short; just a sentence or two, giving the essence of each place and an image of the painting.
- Adebanji Alade, the other artist, won first place in two competitions sponsored by Winsor & Newton. Adebanji's posts are long (a page or two), very informative, step-by-step explanations of each painting or sketch and a bit of advise too. He includes lots of intermediate images as well.
Blogs evolve, but Winsor & Newton's blog just died. If you want product information there's the FAQ's; if you need even more information there's the Contact Us page (which makes no mention of the blog). As for the two artists, Adebanji Alade has his own blog (http://adebanjialade.blogspot.com/) and Glyn Macey is represented by the gallery Gullova Studios (http://www.gullova.co.uk/); he has a links on their website his website (http://www.gullova.co.uk/index.asp/).
Mark's Blog works; it is "based on candor, urgency, timeliness, pithiness, and controversy" (Sessum, 2005, p. 1). His posts are less than a half page. Earlier posts talk mainly about the features of Golden's newest paint. Later posts comment on comments (both complements and criticisms) from artists who tried the product. Most recent posts address corporate issues raised by comments like Golden paints are 'Made in America' - not China. Mark's Blog carries on a "true dialogue"; which is important as Bob Lutz, Vice Chairman of GM advises: "It's important that we run the bad with the good," "We'd take a credibility hit if we posted only rosy compliments, and credibility is the most important attribute a corporate blog can have. Once it's gone, your blog is meaningless. If you filter the negatives out, you don't have a true dialogue" (Sessum, 2005, p. 2)
Although Winsor & Newton calls it a blog, it is really more like web pages. The page design is basic, basic - white space. I don't think blogging software was actually used even though the entries mimic information given for a blog such as title, post order, post time, number of comments in reverse-chronological order. Permalinks, links "to the permanent location of the post in the blog's archive", "allows for precise references, creating a way for authors to link to the specific piece of information to which they're responding" do not exist (Hourihan, 2002, p. 3). The posts are in tables. Only part of the first sentence in each post is shown; the rest can only be accessed by a link to 'Read More' for each row in the table. I found myself losing my place as I read through the posts as the color of the unvisited 'Read More' links does not differ from the visited. The artist's work is also embedded in the tables - it would be nice if the work was readily displayed. Features such as sidebars with links to other posts and comments are non-existent.
In contrast, the Golden blog has the design of a blog. It mimics closely the elements of the GM blog from which the Mark's Code of Ethics was taken. Elements of good design are incorporated from the image to the color palette of background and text. The main page lists each post in abbreviated form like the Winsor & Newton blog; but within each post, there is a link to the previous post and the next post by title. Mark has set up five subject categories for his posts. The blog makes good use of the Permalink (Hourihan, 2002, p. 3). There is a sidebar with a Search function as well as many other ways to access previous posts - a list of Recent Posts, a list of Recent Comments, and a list of Categories as well as a one-month calendar and an Archive. The Archive section provides links to months for which posts and/or comments exist.
To me, the Winsor & Newton blog lacks commitment. Perhaps it started out as a corporate initiative to get in touch with the customer, but then lost its way. The employee blogs just failed to evolve naturally; they met an intended purpose and then just quit. Rather than take the more personal approach of the blog, the company has encouraged the use of their FAQs; and if you can't find the answer there, send an email to tech help or the webmaster.
Mark's blog projects a professional corporate image, one that strives to communicate the company's latest news while engaging their customer, the artist. Mark Golden understands that "blogging is about expressing yourself and how you feel - whether it's your market, industry trends, current events, or some topic, it's not about selling product or writing a sales pitch" it's writing "about things they know about, to be personal, to understand that this is not your 'company' speaking - it's you speaking" (Sessum, 2005, p. 5).
References
Hourihan, M. (2002, Jun 13). What we're doing when we blog. Retrieved from http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/a/2474/.
McClellan, J. (2003, Jan.30). New biz on the blog. The Guardian.
Sessum, J. D. (2005, Sept. 19) Adding your voice to the conversation. Why CEOs should blog. Retrieved from http://www.globalprblogweek.com/2005/09/19/sessum-why-ceos-should-blog/.
